RAIL WAR ON MOTORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1927, Page 2

RAIL WAR ON MOTORS

COMPETITION IN ENGLAND.

Emulating the example of the! Southern Railway, the London and Northeastern Railway recently joined in the war on motor-coaches by announcing striking cuts in their fares, says the “Dally Chronicle" of last month. The Great Western, too, has been busy. Recently, it says, the issue of cheap day tickets on that line was greatly extended. Further extensions are contemplated. The announcement of the L.N.E.R. was that during the remainder of July, and throughout August, 410 long-distance non-stop excursions at exceptionally cheap fares will be run between King’s Cross, Liverpool Street, Marylebone, Skogness, Cleethorpes, Hunstanton, Doncaster, Hull, Leeds, Wakefield, Bradford, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cambridge, Scarborough, Bridlington, and Harrogate. The fares range from 5s to 10s 6d. Ordinary return tickets from King’s Cross to Scarborough, 230 miles, cost £2 17s 4d, so tire cheap fares work out at nearly four miles for a penny. Practically every day new experiments and cheap fares are tried in one locality or another on . the L.N.E.R. system.’' ll -' Wltere- 1 supported by the public, they are 1 retained. '

“During the last three years,” said an official tcf a ? Press"?repre'sentative, “we have made many cbncessions to popularise our services and meet motor competition. We were the first railway company to reintroduce the cheap half<ay excursions from the towns and cities 'to the seaside, arid that facility has been exended enormously. It now covers practically every longdistance journey between the larger stations of the L.N.E.R. Since the spring of 1925 approximately one million'passengers have been carried oh such excursions.” As an example of the value given, the following was quoted: A Leeds to London (186 miles non-stop) restaurant car half-day excursion was recently run for 9s 6d return, with meals at 2s 6d a time. This is believed to be the fastest and longest half-day trip in the world. The journey to King’s Cross was covered in three hours and 39 minutes.

Local journey tickets,.he said, were being greatly extended. These tickets were issued around all large towns for a radius of 25 miles after 10 a.m. on weekdays and all days on Sunday. Six or seven thousand of these cheap fares were being introduced in the area south of York.

A record run was made recently by the L.N.E.R. duplicate Flying Scotsman over the world’s longest non-stop journey, London to Newcastle. Leaving King’s Cross at 9.50 a.m., it arrived at Newcastle (Central) Station at 3.15, five minutes early. .